ATF 2013: opportunities and good expectations

As Prensario has witnessed during the last five years, the market is getting bigger and stronger, generating every time an encouraging atmosphere of business. This year there are important events focused on animation (Animation Lab), non-scripted and factual (MIPAcademy), as well as special keynotes referred to documentary and reality genres.

About attendees, there are the double of Malaysian companies than in 2012, again supported by entities as MCMC, FINAS, MDeC and MATRADE: 50 companies with over 100 titles to be exhibited at ATF. There are also new delegations from Indonesia and South Korea (added to the ones from UK, France, Australia, China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia) and many companies attending for the very first time.

Yesterday, it was held the Pre-Market Conference Day. Koh Lin-Net, CEO at MDA, highlighted during the Opening Address: ‘Singapore is open and ready for business. The country is an incubator of ideas for a growing world (broadcasters, pay TV operators, new media companies moving to multiplatform offers); there is a strong government support (on infrastructure and funding assistance) and there is Asian talent behind Asian content on TV, films and animations productions’.

Youku Tudou’s Chief Content Officer, Sunny Xiangyang Zhu presented the Opening Keynote. The giant Chinese platform reaches 80% of the market with over 400 million users. ‘70% of the content is licensed (Hollywood Studios, specially) and the rest is in house production and user-generated-content (UGC); regarding access, mobile surpassed PCs; and 90% of the incomes comes from advertising, while the rest 10% is from VOD fees’, he expressed.

Other important panels were New Media Strategies - Business Mode and Monetising Opportunities, with representatives from Google/YouTube Asia Pacific, Viki (the other strong Southeast Asian platform), along with MBC and SK Planet, both from South Korea, where it was created Pooq, a joint venture by country’s stations.

The first panel of the Animation Lab joined Henrietta Hurgord-Jones (BBC Worldwide), Nicole Keeb (ZDF Germany), Arne Lohmann (ZDFE.junior Germany), Natasha Malhotra (Disney Southeast Asia) and Barbara Uecker (ABC Australia) providing a first glimpse at what financers are looking for a move in 2014.

During Focus on Korean formats - On Format Trends and the Hottest Format Properties, it was explained that, apart from drama series, there is a big trend towards reality shows and entertainment. Executives from MBC, KBS, JTBC, CJ E&M (TvN) agreed that what is now working well are the programs that show social relations, such us Where are we going dad? (MBC) about dads sharing a day with their kids: it was sold to Hunan TV in China, where it was a huge success.

Lastly, Asia’s most desirable buyers showed what executives of new media (Samsung Southeast Asia), pay TV (StarHub Singapore) and satellite broadcasters (Zhejiang and Hunan from China) are looking for in the market. ‘We are buying contents that connect our viewers, which inspire them. Also, transmedia programming to be consumed on-the-go with great casting and production values’, agreed the participants.

Fabricio Ferrara